Looking for Jane (69)
“Hang on to this one, Beetle,” Nancy’s dad muttered under his breath as he helped her mother out of her jacket.
She worried then about what might happen if they broke up. Her mother would be devastated, and Nancy couldn’t stand the thought of that. But nearly a year has passed since then, and she and Michael are still crazy about one another. It’s the best Nancy has felt about her life in a long time, and for the most part she’s comfortable being herself around him. She hasn’t, however, shared with him that she’s working with the Jane Network.
Not long after she ran into Dr. Taylor outside St. Sebastian’s the previous summer, she went to the recruitment meeting. Her relationship with Michael was still so new, she told herself, and what she was doing was illegal. While her girlfriends are out doing normal things like shopping or going to the movies, she revels in the knowledge that she’s helping other women gain power over their own lives. And although she trusts Michael, the less anyone knows about the network and its activity, the better, which is also why she’s never told him about her own abortion.
“What next?” Nancy asks Michael now, as he insists she take the last bite of cake.
A family with three noisy children passes by their table on the sidewalk outside the café. The little girl points at Nancy’s lemonade and starts shrieking that she wants one, too. Her rather harassed-looking, sweaty mother nods feebly and directs her family toward the doors to the café.
Michael smirks and shakes his head as though clearing his ears of the lingering squeal of the girl’s high-pitched shriek.
“I was just thinking that myself,” Michael says. “What’s next.”
Nancy stares back at him, brown eyes meeting blue over the tip of the straw from her glass. “I’m easy. Want to go down to the Queen’s Quay? Or out to the island? Maybe rent some bikes?”
Michael rakes a hand through his sandy hair, then glances over his shoulder at the few other patrons who have braved the scorching heat of the patio on a day like this. He turns back to Nancy. “I was thinking a bit bigger than that.”
Nancy sets down her empty glass. “Okay. What did you have in mind?”
Michael smiles and lets his breath out in one long, hot stream. Birds twitter in the small privet bush to Nancy’s left.
“Well,” Michael says, rising from his seat.
He reaches deep into the pocket of his shorts and pulls out a tiny black box. Nancy watches him kneel in front of her as though it’s being played back to her in slow motion, like a dream. Her surroundings become blurred. All she can see is Michael’s shining face looking up at her over the sparkling diamond ring in his hand.
“I was kind of thinking about forever. I think forever is next.”
“Oh, Michael.”
Nancy vaguely registers a gasp from one of the other patrons on the patio. “Look! Look!” the woman hisses at her husband.
“I wanted to bring you back to the place where I first fell in love with you. I knew as soon as I met you that you were the one for me. I was a goner. We sat at this table and you ordered me a double espresso that was so strong I nearly had a heart attack, but I didn’t care. There was a glow about you that night just like there is now. Like a spotlight was shining down on you, leading me home.”
Nancy presses her hand to her mouth and blinks back the tears.
“I love you, Nancy Mitchell. Will you marry me?”
Nancy throws her arms around Michael, burying her nose in his neck. She can feel him shaking.
“So, is that a yes?” Michael asks her, laughing.
She pulls back to see his face. “Yes! It’s a yes. I love you.”
Michael rises awkwardly to his feet, pulling Nancy with him as they kiss each other deeply. Only now does Nancy hear the applause issuing all around them. Even across the street, people are whooping and cheering for them.
When they pull apart, Nancy wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, then holds her left one out to Michael, who slides his ring onto her trembling finger. It fits perfectly. They kiss again, and Nancy feels like her feet might leave the ground. Or maybe she’s already floating.
“I love you,” she whispers, grinning.
“I love you, too.”
“You’re shaking. Are you okay?”
Michael nods. “Yeah. I mean, I was pretty sure I knew what the answer was going to be, but no one ever tells you how scary it is. My God, that was terrifying!”
* * *
That night, Nancy and Michael change into fresh clothes at their respective apartments, then meet up to walk over to Nancy’s parents’ house to relay the happy news.
They already know, of course. Michael phoned them one night in June to invite himself over for an Important Conversation. He certainly didn’t have to wrangle their blessing out of them.
“It was intimidating, to ask your dad,” Michael tells her now as they stroll hand in hand the last few blocks toward the Mitchells’ house.
Nancy smirks. “He’s all bark. He loves you.”
“I keep trying to figure out which of your parents you look more like. With most people you can usually see more of one than the other, but I can’t really tell with your folks.”
Nancy clears her throat and squeezes Michael’s hand, her eyes on the sidewalk beneath her feet. She’s thought about telling him the truth for a while, but has kept putting it off, telling herself that it’s a conversation for another day. Now isn’t the time. Not when their engagement is casting such a warm glow over everything. The truth might ruin all that, and what if Michael decided it was all too much for him? What if he got angry that she’d waited this long to tell him?